US stops selling armored vehicles to UAE

The US government has commented on the latest shipments of armored vehicles that were to be delivered to the UAE, CNN reported.

In a report, the network said that the Pentagon is continuing its investigation into the allegations that the military equipment fell into the hands of militias in Yemen, most notably separatists and other militant groups.

The 2014 deal between the UAE and the United States was worth $ 2.5 billion and required the delivery of 4,500 of these vehicles.

Under arms sales deals between the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the Americans, these US-made armored vehicles are “proprietary technology” and neither side was supposed to let them out of their control.

US arms recipients are also legally bound to comply with end-use requirements prohibiting the transfer of any equipment to third parties without prior permission from the US government. This license has never been obtained.

CNN also revealed that a ship had secretly unloaded US weapons in the port of Aden under cover of darkness, which had been reported and filmed secretly.

The images show the distinctive shape of the US-made Oshkosh in the early morning darkness, a piece of military hardware that is at the heart of the confrontation between some US lawmakers and the administration of President Donald Trump.

Aden is controlled by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, whose main partners continue to ship US-made weapons to the country despite bipartisan anger in Congress over the way Riyadh is supported in this bloody and bitter conflict.

Using the accounts of those who reported it and port documents, CNN identified the ship that unloaded US weapons in Aden last week as the Saudi-registered Bahri al-Hofuf. Looking at the tracking data, the last registered location of the vessel was the Saudi port of Jeddah on September 17, before sailing to Port Sudan, arriving the next day.

Thereafter, the ship’s tracking system was shut down, before appearing again under the guise of darkness in Aden on October 29.

Confidentiality surrounds the flow of arms to the Yemen conflict that has led to October 31 deaths of more than 100,000 people since 2015, according to the Armed Conflict Data Project website and the US event.

Internal fighting in the south this summer – between the Saudi-backed forces of the internationally recognized government and the UAE-backed separatists – has further divided territory, threatening to plunge the entire country into a long and multilateral war.

In the meantime, a senior international investigator said that the UAE sent false information to the United States, accusing figures in the Yemeni Reform Party of terrorism.

Gregory Johnson, a former member of Yemen’s Security Council sanctions committee, said Abu Dhabi had been sending the United States files on Yemeni figures in the Islah party, claiming they were members of al-Qaeda.

Johnson wrote his report at the Sana’a Center for Studies and Research. He said that international investigations into these political figures reveal every time that none of these Yemeni leaders was a member of al-Qaida, but rather that they are members and figures of Islah Party that the UAE considers its enemies.

Johnson said in his report that the United States views Yemen as a supplement, while Saudi Arabia dictates its actions in Yemen, and considered that Washington sees the crisis in Yemen in the context of US efforts to confront Iran.

The report warned that Washington is putting itself at a real risk by supporting Saudi policy objectives, rather than supporting its policy objectives in Yemen, which could lead to a distorted understanding of what is happening in the country, which has been plagued by five years of war.

A year ago, international reports revealed that the UAE recruited American and Israeli mercenary companies, which carried out assassinations of activists and leaders of the Islah Party in Aden, Taiz and the southern governorates, although the party is the largest political component supporting the legitimate government and the Arab coalition in the war against the Houthis.

The companies justified the mercenaries, former US soldiers, that the UAE told them that the figures to be assassinated terrorists, to discover that they are not so, but members of the Yemeni Rally for Reform (the Muslim Brotherhood of Yemen).

The UAE is hostile to Islamist groups, including the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which it considers a terrorist group, and has since waged a vicious campaign against the currents of political Islam in most Arab countries.